Against the COVID-19 pandemic that shook 2020, and after being postponed for an entire year, theTokyo 2020 Olympicsbegan today with its opening ceremonies. While the event remained fairly traditional in style compared to the wayMario helped former Prime Minister Abepromote the games back in 2016, there was still a presence of Japan’s pop culture impact. How they paid tribute was with video game music welcoming the athletes into the games during the Parade of Nations.
The opening ceremonies for the Olympics are one of the parts that fans tune into every year, as the country hosting celebrates itself and other countries in the way it sees fit. London’s 2012 opening ceremony saw a surpriseappearance by Mr. Beanas England celebrated its own history in entertainment. Japan took an approach that honored their cultural history instead, but it still gave a nod to its hand in a global phenomenon by letting video game soundtracks play.
RELATED:Olympic Gymnast Racks up $5,000 Pokemon GO Bill
The Parade of Nations began with “Edrick’s Theme” fromDragon Questmaking its way through the stadium, re-orchestrated and arranged just for the opening ceremonies. Once that was done, if fans didn’t recognize that song, they certainly would with the next one, as the full version ofFinal Fantasy’sfamous “Victory Fanfare” was next. The list of all the songs played is found below.
If fans missed the tribute to their favorite titles, as the athletes walked in the songs were played on loop up to three times. As of this writing, there’s no official upload of the ceremony for viewers to watch, but some players took videos of their favorite songs playing loud and clear as country names are called out. The tracklist has a grand spectrum of titles on it from many different generations of gaming, such asGradiustoNeiR,with the latterrecently expanding via the release ofNeiR Replicant.
While some songs are more questionable, asSonic,Tales of, and several other IPs are paid tribute, there is a strong theme of heroes and their unity to be felt in the songs chosen for the ceremony. Many of the songs used come from fan-favorite titles, although curiously after Mario’s appearance in Rio, he and anyNintendo propertiesare absent from the ceremonies entirely.
The biggest tie to all of these songs beyond their medium is they are games made by Japanese developers and companies, which was surely done to honor their history and place in Japan’s culture. As theTokyo 2020 Olympicsserve to unite the world under sportsmanship, the opening ceremony brought gamers together as they rejoiced at the sound of their favorite songs.
MORE:Google Launches Doodle Champion Island Games in Commemoration of Tokyo Olympics
